cold is the night
by sorde
Summary: "She's already won over, she's so in love with him and she needs to keep him safe, but staying away is so unbearably difficult when he looks at her like that." It's been months since she left. 8x02 post-ep.
1. long is the road

angst, thank you for inspiring this to come out all in one sitting. What a happy surprise that was.

Lyrics come from The Oh Hellos' _Cold is the Night._ I'd love some constructive criticism, with the friendly reminder that I did not manufacture the S8 storyline like I did this tiny little nugget.

Completed-ish, with the addendum that I'll try to tack on more as they come. 'cause bless S8.

* * *

 **cold is the night.**

It's been months since she left. 8x02 post-ep.

* * *

 _long is the road that leads me home_

"Kate," he sighs, his elbows on his knees as he peers at her from the couch in her office. From the couch in her office, because she didn't get him a chair. Because she doesn't want him here. Because she wants him safe.

They've been doing this dance for months already, and Kate tries so, so hard not to see how weary he's grown, how he's aged in their time apart. She tries so hard not to see because she knows that he'll reach a breaking point and even though they can't _be together_ she loves having him in her precinct and she doesn't want him to go.

"Kate," he repeats, and her gaze jerks up to meet his. She's working under the pretence of paperwork, and he's working under the pretence of a case he's weaselled his way into, and the bullpen is empty. Months ago, this would have been an evening of him attempting to coax her into the coat closet or the storage room, and she's not too proud to admit that it would always have a 50/50 chance of working. "Do you want me to get my lawyer to draw up divorce papers?"

Oh.

God.

 _That_ hits her like a sock to the gut, and no, no, there are tears in his eyes and her heart is somewhere around her oesophagus and somehow every, every muscle in her body aches. "W-what?" she finally manages to stumble out.

He looks gutted, seems to change tact. "You didn't give me any details, Kate. Is this it? Are you tired of our– our marriage, and you're trying to spare my feelings?"

" _No_ , I didn't, how could you think–"

"Kate," he says, and even though it's the fourth time he's spoken her name in two minutes it's different every time, his voice so, so soft, forgiveness already laced around it. "You left me."

"I didn't leave you!" Oh god. She did. She left him. She packed a bag and she said _I'm sorry_ and she left him standing in the foyer of their home. "I didn't mean to. I didn't– I love you. I just need some time."

His whole face shutters closed at that, forgiveness sliding off that easily, and he nods once, abruptly, jerkily stands to leave. It takes her a second to make the connection, to here the unspoken _I'll call, okay?_ that's apparently ringing through her husband's head.

Her husband. Oh, she doesn't want him to die, but she wants him so badly.

And this is not their early partnership, full of misunderstandings and unspoken hurts. She scrambles up to correct herself, to catch him before he leaves, one hand reaching out grabs his wrist and then pulling back like she's been burned. "Wait, wait, I didn't mean... Castle, I'm just sorting something out. This isn't forever."

When he turns around, his face is still that near-crying that makes this whole conversation so much worse. He's so jovial in the precinct, but she can see through his cracks, see that he's playing it up because he thinks that this is how to win her back, the same way he did the first time. It's not, it's not it's not, she's already won over, she's so in love with him and she needs to keep him safe, but staying away is so unbearably difficult when he looks at her like that.

"How long?"

Oh. How long will it take to finish this case?

"I don't know," she murmurs, ashamed with it.

"Is this what it's always going to be? You become overwhelmed with something, and run off to sort it out, and I wait until you come back?" He doesn't sound bitter, or angry, even, which might make this whole thing easier. His entire being is desolate, his body caving in on itself, his hands reaching out to touch her but stopping even before they reach the halfway point. "Is that what our marriage is going to be? The moments we find together between pauses?"

" _No,_ " she cries, and this is so much worse than even leaving the loft, leaving him.

It strikes her, suddenly, that this could be another thirteen years. She just needs to get a handle on it, just needs to make sure that he's safe from whatever her investigation will rain down on her, but. It could be another thirteen years.

Kate is trying to save their happily-ever-after, but she's also watching it crumble between her fingers.

"I love you," she says, because it's all she has.

 _and longer still when i walk alone._


	2. heavy is the head

**cold is the night. 2/?**

* * *

 _heavy is the head that gets no sleep,_

"He asked me if I wanted to get divorced."

Burke's not a chatty man, and that's perhaps why he works so well for her - he picks his words carefully, finds the right moment for them, but mostly, he lets her work it out herself. Even now, his only reaction is to incline his head slightly, tilting his chin up at her.

"I don't- I _told_ him I loved him, I tried to make it clear that it wasn't about _us_ , but..." She trails off, because what else is there to say, really?

"You need the words, Kate," he all Burke offers, but his voice is coaxing. This is a dance they know well; she's been in his office on and off for four years, and regularly for the last couple of months.

"I do." She needs the _Kate, I love you_ to cling to, she always has, she needs his books to pore over, the notes he jots down for her in the loft, the words he whispers in her ear as they go to sleep. She needs the words... But maybe he doesn't? "He needs the actions?" she tries, cringing even as it turns into a question at the end. "Leaving him–" Oh, god, it hurts to say the words aloud, it hurts, it hurts. "Leaving him doesn't exactly scream _I still want to be in this with you._ "

He hums. "Do you?"

"Of course!" she cries, and they've been over this, around and around and around. "I just don't want him to die!"

"Which he will. If you pursue this case, you believe that you'll put him in danger."

She's damn frustrated that they're routing back to this again, because it's all her sessions ever degenerate into – this fine point. An important point, and maybe the trick to getting herself back into the loft and back into the place where she can ease her husband's worry with a thumb smoothing over his eyebrow. But it feels like rehashing the same thing, and it all hurts.

"Yes," she finally grits out.

"But pursuing the case is the most important thing?"

" _No,_ " she cries, and that's new. Burke's never this direct. "No, it's not the most important thing."

She looks to Burke for help, because she can't find the words to follow that, but he's back to being silenced, to looking at her across the room with kind, encouraging eyes. Perfect. She takes a deep breath, dives in. "I don't... have a handle on this. I can feel this obsession lurking inside, and if I pursue it, then it puts my family – my _husband_ – at risk."

"And if you don't?"

"It's not that simple." This is a point they've crossed before. It doesn't make it any easier to say. "It's like an addiction," she finally manages, in a robotic voice mastered from years and years of hearing it and repeating it and accepting it. "And I don't trust myself not to fall into the bottle again."

Burke offers her an encouraging hum, jotting something down in his notebook. She wonders if he, too, has aged in the last several months, if he's also burdened by this decision of hers like everyone else in her life seems to be. "I don't suppose there's an Obsessive Anonymous, is there?" she tacks on wryly, but of course Burke just looks at her again, no indulgent twist his mouth like Castle would have, no fondness for her gallows humour.

"What do you want, Kate?"

It's not the first time Burke has asked her that, but it's the first time she hears it instead in Castle's voice, remembers the night she showed up at his loft, and she wants him here, wants him asking it, wants to say _you, you, you._ It grows a lump in her throat and she swallows around it, refusing to cry in this office again. "I want to get my head around this." Mostly honest. "I want to go home." Better.

"You say that Rick asked you if you wanted to get a divorce." She nods. "What if home isn't there when you're ready for it?"

His voice is so quiet, so beseeching, that it strikes Kate that Burke is trying to break the news to her. As though it's news to be broken. But she's thought about this, of course she has. This isn't four years ago, and Kate is not going in blind, and she can see the forest for the trees now, she knows the possible consequences. Long before she stood in the loft and said _I'm sorry._ _I love you so much,_ she stood in the hallway outside their home and considered every possible option, thought long and hard about the very real possibility that her husband might not be there when she finally figures this thing out.

Thirteen years. She tries hard not to think about that one.

But her answer is easy: "I'm his partner. It's my job to have his back." And then, even though it runs through her painfully, "If he hates me, if he leaves me, if he's gone when I get back... At least he's alive to do it." At least she won't drag him down with her.

 _we carry our lives around in our memories._


	3. steady is the hand

**cold is the night. 3/5**

* * *

 _steady is the hand that's come to terms,_

 _"You have to ask yourself what you're going to do. You want to rid yourself of your addiction, but you won't stop investigating. You want to go home, but you won't make a move to get there. How long do you want to straddle the line, Kate?"_

Burke's parting words run as a loop, like she's put a scratched CD in her music player and it keeps skipping over the same words. Indignation fights its way up her throat, of course – if she's just going to be sitting around protecting her husband from her obsession, she might as well solve the case, right? What else would she do? – and she tries to ignore that, tries to ignore the words, tries for a moment, even, to ignore the case.

Fails spectacularly at every single endeavour, of course. It's late into the night, and Kate sits in the window of her hotel room, poring over the timeline she's made, the details that she's put together for this case. It's clear-cut, no post-its or cue cards this time, just her own neat writing mapped out over the whiteboard she picked up that first night, when she was roaming the streets and trying not to think about her hotel room, trying harder not to think about the loft. It's smaller, of course, and perched on top of her desk instead of propped upright. Certainly not precinct standards, but respectable.

Her phone lights up just as she's hearing the echo of _straddle the line_ again.

It's Alexis. Oh.

"Hey," she says as she picks up, hesitance lacing around her words.

"Hey, Kate," comes through the line in reply, and it's not quite as acerbic as Kate would've expected. Alexis just sounds uncertain, a little out of place. She and Alexis have seen each other as Castle's PI cases carry over into her work at the precinct, and the... _effort_ that Alexis has maintained is surprising to Kate. _Family_ , Castle had mouthed to her with a shrug when she'd shot him a look of surprise the first time Alexis had smiled hesitantly at her.

"It's nice to hear from you," she offers honestly.

Alexis lets out a sigh at the other end of the line, sounding a little rushed. "Yeah, hey, sorry to bother you, I just wanted to know if you'd put Dad's crutches into storage or not?"

"What?"

"I can't find them, and Dad never pays attention to that stuff, but I don't want to go rooting through the whole unit if it turns out that you just stashed them in the laundry room or threw them out, you know?"

Kate has the forethought not to say it again, but even still, it rings sharply in her head: what? "No, no, wait, I meant– Are you okay? Did you hurt your leg?"

Alexis sounds distinctly amused on the other end of the line. "No, Dad just got his leg all twisted up and his knee is acting up again. We've been looking into his disappearance–" and Alexis' voice gets grave at the word _disappearance_ , but she perks up to get the rest of it out, "–but all he's proven so far is that he can't jump as high as he thinks he can." Of course he can't. The man thinks he's a a veritable high-jumper, but he can barely launch himself a foot off the ground. "And yet they still called him in to save the world."

 _Save the world_ seems to get the thought through Kate's head. He's looking into his disappearance again?

"Kate?"

"Sorry," she grits out, her mind still stuck the news and the weird normalcy Alexis is affecting, as though this is a phone call to check up on her like any other day. "Uh, yeah," she murmurs distractedly, then remembers, "I mean, no, I left them in the secret lair– I mean, your dad's _game room_." That's an old joke between them, Kate's insistence that she sure wasn't going to called the room off their bedroom _the secret lair._ "I was sure that he was going to fall playing laser tag, or something. Is he okay?"

"Yeah." Alexis huffs out a laugh. "You know Dad, he's just wandering around the house moaning about it."

Of course he is. Moaning about his hurt knee, which he hurt because he was looking into his disappearance. She stupidly, stupidly wants to cry at the image she has of him limping around the house looking for the crutches she stashed away for safekeeping, wants to cry at the thought of him and his bad knee and–

An injured knee is not the same as dead, but for some reason it hits Kate like it is and she says goodbye to Alexis, rushes off the phone and pushes the burning in the back of her eyes away.

He's looking into his disappearance. He got hurt looking into his disappearance.

It strikes her, suddenly, stupidly, that she doesn't have the monopoly on obsession. Castle needs the story in the same way that Kate needs justice, and she knows how restless he's been for the last fourteen months, with the few details that have come to light. Restless and wandering around the house, scared to look into it in case it's dangerous but too curious to just forget about it.

It sounds familiar.

Kate Beckett had realized, years ago, now, that she was on this planet for a few reasons: to get justice for the victims. To pursue the truth. And to be Castle's partner, to have his back, to hold his hand when he finds out his dad is kind of a deadbeat, when his daughter disappears, when he can't reconcile losing two months of his life.

She's so, so scared for him, scared that she can't let this case go, scared _because_ she can't let this case go. Scared to bring him down with her. But while she's protecting him, he's running off looking into his own brand of danger, because they're apparently magnets for life-threatening situations. And he's getting hurt.

She can't let this case go. Five people are dead because of her, and Kate has no idea where to even begin to leave it in someone else's hands. For all of her work with Burke, she's still looking into it. She's trying her very, very best to be Castle's partner in this one thing, to protect him from _this one thing_ , but the thought that there's so much out there that leaves him at risk clogs her throat. She's obsessed and isolated, but so is he, so is he, so is he.

He's looking into his disappearance without her. Because she left him. Because she wanted to protect him.

And she's been holding herself away because her husband will help her solve this case if she asks him.

But he knows of obsession, too, knows what she's like _and_ knows how she feels. She's treading water, and maybe she needs his help to swim to shore.

By the time she makes it to the door of the loft, the tears streaming down her face are wet and hot and the anxiety pushes through her and then, just below the surface, she can feel the fluid line of _I need to know who did this_ thrumming through her throat. Even now she can't turn it off.

Castle opens the door, leaning heavily on the doorknob, but when he sees her his face breaks into a wide, happy smile, like she's the best thing he's seen all day.

 _How long do you want to straddle the line, Kate?_

"I'm scared I'm going to get you killed, too," she cries.

 _with the lessons it has had to learn._


	4. things that i must do

**cold is the night. 4/5**

* * *

 _i've seen the things that i must do._  
 _but lord, this road is meant for two,_

"Kate," he breathes, "What makes you think you're going to get me killed?" Even as the words come out of his mouth, she watches him puts the final piece of the puzzle together, the smile sliding right off his face. When she looks down nervously, Kate catches a glimpse of the bandaged foot he has leaning against the doorframe, and it sends this whole endeavour into sharp focus.

The tears stop; she pulls herself together, puts on her game face. "Can we head inside?"

"Are you staying?" he grumbles a little petulantly, but he moves out of the doorway as she opens her mouth to reply. She doesn't have any sort of answer, so it's probably for the best.

"You need to sit down," she says instead.

He lets her in, closing the door firmly behind her with a wary look shot in her direction. After a pause, he stumbles his way forward and to the couch, and, oh god, it hurts just as much to see it as it did when she imagined in, Castle – her husband – hobbling on the one foot. Instinctively, she moves to help him, but he shoots her a glare so fierce it could only have been learned from her, their first year together.

When he's settled at one end, she perches herself delicately on the other, bracing herself for whatever's about to come.

This all would have been much, much better if she'd thought it through, if she had a plan. But.

She doesn't want to straddle the line. And last time Kate sat around and thought up a plan, the only thing she could come up with is the situation they're in now.

"You're investigating LOCKSAT," Castle supplies for her when she doesn't immediately rush to fill the silence. She nods, scared to open her mouth. "You're investigating LOCKSAT, and you're scared it's going to get me killed."

"Yes."

"So you left me."

The distinction is still _so clear_ in Kate's mind, the difference between walking out on their marriage and walking out to _save_ their marriage, but her talks with Burke have served mainly to shed light on the fact that perhaps the distinction isn't so clear to everyone else. Maybe walking out is just walking out, no matter where you're heart's at. "I didn't–" She reverses track. "Yes. I left. To keep you safe." That's the most important part.

"Because leaving me, but still being married to me and still seeing me every day kept me safe?" he barks out, raising on his elbows for a moment before he remembers that he's injured and can't pace. He falls back to the couch, his gaze fierce on hers.

"No!" she barks back, takes a deep breath to calm herself. "Because I need to pursue this case, and if I'm living with you, if I'm _with you_ , then you'll pursue it, too. And if you pursue it, then it could get you killed." Correction: " _I_ could get you killed."

"So you left me," he repeats, voice biting. Even so, he deflates before her eyes, and the forlorn that comes out is even worse than the fury. "I don't– Are you just going to run, every time a new case comes up? Every time you think I'm going to get hurt? Run and not tell me about it?"

The fight just flows right out of her, pools at her feet, and she jerks her gaze away from his and stares down at her hands nervously, ashamedly. "I don't know," she mumbles, and it's honest, it's honest, but it doesn't make it any easier to say. "I don't know how to let things go." She lifts one shoulder up in a semblance of a shrug, miserable with how badly she wants him, how badly she wants to solve the case.

"Then why are you here," he says, and it's not a question, just a monotone of weariness, of months spent pretending that everything's okay while nothing's okay at all.

"I don't want you to die," she murmurs, "But I miss you. I don't want to straddle the line anymore."

"You think I want _you_ to die? You think I want to have to come to terms with the fact that maybe, if I'd pushed harder, I wouldn't have had to bury _you_ , huh?"

"Castle–"

"You left!"

"I didn't know what else to do!" she cries, and it's too much, too much; her husband looks like he's about to cry, and they're running around and around the same argument, and maybe that's the whole point? Maybe they're supposed to battle it out together?

"I don't trust you," he adds, sounding and looking for all the world like a little boy, like he can't orient himself if he doesn't trust her, like she's sent them all in a tailspin, and she has, hasn't she?

"I'd do anything to keep you safe," she murmurs, scooting in closer to him on the couch, "And I don't trust myself with this. I can't stop looking into it, I can't stop thinking about it and going over it in my head, and nothing I've tried so far has helped." She takes a deep breath in, prepares herself for the real motivator she had to get here tonight, the whole reason she showed up at his door: "I think I need your help."

He opens his mouth, gaping at her like some sort of cartoon fish, and she'd laugh in any other circumstance but it's just sad that she's surprised him with that. "It's late," he finally says, his voice low in the darkness of the dimly-lit loft. "You're going to go to bed, because you look like you're about to keel over." As he says it, the feeling hits her, the overwhelming urge to crawl into bed and curl up next to him and sleep until she can let this go, until everything is reset again. Castle's her husband, and he knows her so well, the years of history stretched out between them, and this could work.

This could work.

Until: "And I'm going to sleep on the couch," he adds, reaching behind himself to grab a throw pillow leaning against the back of the couch.

Whoa, no. Shooting a pointed look at his foot, she stops him with a hand on his wrist before he can move to escort her into their bedroom, feeling disoriented in the comfort of their home, in all that she's kept herself separate from. Disoriented, and filled up with it, too, filled up with this reminder that her husband, and his knowledge of obsession, knowledge of _her_ , can reorient her. Filled up with the thought that maybe all the pieces can come together. "I'm going to earn back your trust." she says fiercely, "I did all of this because I love you, because I want to _save_ our marriage... and because I'm scared." His eyes soften at that, a hand reaching out to rest on her forearm. "I don't know what to do."

She takes the pillow from him, curls her arms around it in some semblance of the hug she actually she wants. "But if one of us is sleeping on the couch, it's me." She's stubborn, determined, determined to make this right.

He gives her a long, assessing look, eyes bright even in the darkness but hesitance etched into every edge of his body. "C'mon," he says, finally, moving to stand. "The bed's big enough for two." And then, sounding like he only half-means it, he adds, "And it's harder for you to leave if you're sleeping on the other side of the bed."

"I'm not the one who bought a bouncy house for a mattress," she shoots before she can think better of it, a hand instinctively coming out to steady him as he hobbles into the bedroom.

The look he shoots her gives way to a curled mouth, though, a half-smile.

It's worth it. However uncertain she is, however up in the air everything else feels, it's worth it for that begrudging half-smile.

She can fight for that.

 _so i am waiting here for you._


	5. before it buries me

Fair warning: I'm a happily-ever-after kind of writer. Ye be warned, and please turn back now if it's not what you were looking for.

* * *

 **cold is the night. 5/5**

* * *

 _take my hand and set me free,_  
 _take my burdens and bury them deep,_

By the time the morning light breaks, Kate has been staring at Castle's looming back for at least several hours. When they'd retired to bed, he had shoved an old t-shirt of his into her hands, ratty and cold from disuse. Whatever the shirt was, it was old enough that she didn't recognize it right away, and it looked like it'd be a little too tight in the arms, but not so small that she had already usurped it as one of her own sleepshirts.

Not exactly a warm welcome, anyway.

She'd gone to the bathroom to change, and had returned to find him already in bed, with his back to the bathroom door. Which is where he's been. Unmoving. For the last eight hours.

Yeah, he's not sleeping, either.

Usually they only fall asleep like this, with Castle's back an insurmountable mountain, when they have little spats, and even then, all it takes is for one of them to crack and they're back tangled in each other. Kate's not totally certain what to do with this; she reaches out a hand to rest on his back but only makes it partway, her hand falling to the bed next to him. She stretches one finger out to play with the edge of his shirt, just lightly, tries to come up with something to say.

He surprises her, turning over and flopping onto his back before she can open her mouth, his eyes trained on the ceiling instead of her. He feels, somehow, further away than he did with his back to her. "I keep thinking," Castle starts before she can ask, "About my disappearance."

"I know," she murmurs, and the look he shoots her is very carefully not surprised, like he knows that her detective skills have no bounds. Even if Alexis is the one who spilled the beans. He rolls his head back up to face the ceiling.

"I meant about me leaving." He takes a deep, deep breath in.

"You don't remember it," Kate says, defensive without even really thinking about it. He's been holding the guilt of it around his neck like a vice for a year now, and she's not sure why it's coming up now but she still jumps at the opportunity to correct him, to smooth the lines on his forehead.

"No, I know. I was kidnapped," he sighs. "But then I chose to stay."

"To save the world."

"To save the world, to save you and Alexis and Mother." He clearly has a point, and he's struggling to hit it, so she waits. "I chose to stay _away_."

Oh.

Kate's thought about that before, of course, around and around in her mind. He didn't have a choice to go, but he did have a choice to stay. He could've called, could've dropped her a note to say _hey, I'm not dead_ , but instead he stayed away for two months. Six weeks of which, even now, are still missing. She wishes that he would look at her, that there wasn't this divide and she could put a palm to his cheek and say _it doesn't matter anymore._

"I chose to keep you guys in the dark, and I don't know why, but I have a pretty good guess." He chuckles mirthlessly. "If I'd called you, you would have stopped me. Or you would have showed up, and been in danger. The same reason I didn't call you when Alexis was kidnapped."

Finally, finally, he turns his head to look at her, lips quirking up at the corners. "Sound familiar?"

Oh. He's just hitting her with bombs, tonight, isn't he? Her obsessiveness, he knows so well, and he holds it himself, too, his search for the story. But in this, too, in this fierce protective nature of theirs, in their instinctive reaction to both seek the truth _and_ to protect others while they do it. But. It's different, _this_ is different, of course it is. He was dragged into it, and Kate _started_ this, the second she put in the search for Bracken to see what popped. Not to mention: "We weren't married then, though."

"No. But I still disappeared on our wedding day."

"Not our wedding day," she snaps, leaning up on one elbow to glare fiercely at him, tired of laying next to him but not seeing his face. Their wedding day holds such a special place in her heart, at dusk with just their family, just them. They're married, and he very definitively did _not_ take off on their wedding day.

He wriggles his eyebrows a little, eyes _just_ glancing at her before flickering back to the ceiling. "Aborted wedding day, then."

Finally, _finally,_ he rolls his head towards her again, his face so serious. "What I'm trying to tell you is that I understand."

Kate wants to move closer at that, to press her mouth to his and to roll him over onto his back, to smooth her gratefulness into his skin, but she's struck with the sense that _I understand_ is not the same as _I forgive you._

He just laid there and gutted himself for her, explained all that he's been thinking about since they went to bed, so she owes him the same. It's been the one trail of thought running through her mind since she murmured _I can't stop looking into it_. "I think that, after my mother's murderer – Bracken – was thrown in jail, I thought I could just move on, that I could flick the switch and go live a normal life. And then all of this happened, and five people are dead–"

"Not your fault," he says immediately.

Well. True, but, "Maybe not my fault. But because of something I did. And I can't push this... This _obsession_ , this–"

He jumps in, supplies the word smoothly, his face impassive. "Addiction. This addiction."

"Yeah," she breathes.

"'You don't give up. You don't back down.'" One of his hands comes out to stretch along her waist, still so much tentativeness in the move. "Funny how the thing that makes you fall for a person is the thing that ends up driving you crazy."

She arches an eyebrow, feeling lighter, somehow, for having him vocalize the word _addiction._ "Wow, bold. A best-selling author falling back onto clichés."

His smile is soft, still so much forgiveness in it and she feels unworthy, tainted with her obsession as she is. He moves to sit up and she follows, crossing her legs to face him head-on in the bed. When he sits like this, the light from the window breaks in over his mussed hair, dawn making him look younger, even as his face contorts comically when he jostles his ankle. "Here's the deal, Kate. I understand why you took off, why you wanted me safe. But. Marriage is..."

"Partnership," she supplies smoothly, and he gives her a grudging smile for that.

"Partnership," he agrees. "Your problems are _our_ problems," he reiterates, looking so earnest and eager and, just below the surface, overwhelmingly hesitant. "Or..." He inhales deeply, sharply, already miserable with it. "Or no deal."

"Castle," she sighs, frustrated with herself, with this _thing_ , with the fact that she can't give it up but she's can't get him killed. "I don't know if I can! I don't want you die." The very thought sends tears pushing at the back of her eyes again, and she's _tired_ , tired of crying, tired of being miserable with it all, "But I don't know if I can stop looking into this. I don't know if I can let this thing go, _god_ , I don't want to live only in the periods between solving one case and getting a new one, but I don't know how to leave it, I thought I had, I thought–"

"Okay, okay," Castle soothes, but he still holds himself away, soothing with just his words. "Okay. So we figure that part out. We figure out how to help you let things go."

She feels guilty even saying it, but: "Do you really think I should just let this go? Leave it for someone else?"

"I think that, if anyone could get this guy, it's you." He's honest. It's kind, and still, still, it hurts, his tone careful and sad and determined. "So we figure out a way to approach it healthily, so that you're not killed, and I'm not killed, and it doesn't take up our whole life. And we don't put our life on hold. Kate, I just don't want you to leave me while you do it."

Okay. Okay. She can breathe through that one. Figure out a way to still solve the big cases, to still get justice, but without being all-consuming about it. Without letting it become an obsession. That's the point she kept missing, with Burke; she wanted to kick the obsession, but she didn't want to stop getting justice for the victims. And the two felt like they were mutually exclusive.

But Castle gets what the obsession means, what that voice inside that connects the dots and craves the truth feels like.

How to approach it as a case, not an obsession.

A case, not an addiction.

"Okay," she breathes, overwhelmed with it all, with the fact that, restless and wandering, she ended up at the loft seeking some kind of relief, some arbitrary unknown, and her husband figured it out, handed it to her within only... eight hours of thinking about it. "Castle," she starts, because it feels like maybe it needs to be said this way, "I find that I'm having this problem, and rumour has it that my problems are your problems." And then, more seriously: "I need your help. I need you. Can you help me figure this out?" Just saying the words lifts the weight off her chest.

His smile is shy, still hesitant around the edges but warmer that it had been as they went to bed. "You won't leave me again?" he says, sounding like a little boy. He closes his eyes in some sort of façade of shielding them from the morning sun but she knows, knows it's to shield his heart.

 _I didn't leave you_ is right on the tip of her tongue again, but Kate really _looks_ at him, takes it all in, and thinks carefully. She didn't leave him; she wanted to protect him, but she left the door open, prepared her return. Didn't think about the whole thing enough, clearly, hadn't come up with a strict end point. But she left to keep his heart beating. And to him – she'd talked this over with Burke, _to Castle_ – she had given him no explanation, no tangible details, just ignored his pleas to tell him that Bracken was wrong and had walked out the door. The third, at least, to do it to him, his poor, battered heart taking a beating and coming out bigger, more open, every time.

She's been keeping his heart beating, protecting _him_ , but she hasn't been protecting it.

And she's certain in this, certain in his help, in _letting_ him help, in finding a healthy way to get justice, determined to find a way that doesn't get him killed: "No," she sighs, and then, because Castle's eyes open, wide and forgiving and hurt around the edges, and she never wants to cause him hurt again, wants to regain his trust and _earn_ it, she adds: "Castle? I'm sorry for how badly I screwed this up. I'm sorry I hurt you." A hand comes to either side of his face, and he doesn't back away, just stares at her, happy, already, to have her back, so she moves in, brushes her lips against his. "You're enough," she whispers.

"You're enough, you're enough, you're enough." Until he believes it.

 _bury it before it buries me._

* * *

To all that anons whose reviews I deleted (and the one signed-in whose review I can't delete and whom I can't contact directly): I'm sorry you feel that way. Kinda wish you'd picked a different venue to vent about Kate's sluttiness (really?) and the fact that she's unworthy of love ( _really?_ ), but alas.

And to everyone else: thank you, thank you, thank you. A lot of you are pretty pissed at Kate, and maybe didn't want the happy ending, but thanks for taking the journey with me anyway. :) This is actually my first completed multichapter, which was a pleasant surprise, and definitely the most I've written in years, and I appreciated every modicum of support. The goal is to have the next one be less of an angst-fest, because I'm bumming myself out.


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